The iPhone 6S is official, and '3D Touch' is the new right click

Peek and Pop

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Well we'll be damned - Apple has revealed the iPhone 6S, which brings a number of tweaks to the existing iPhone 6 design.

The new phone touches down alongside the 6S Plus, packing a 4.7-inch display, souped-up A9 processor and a new 12MP iSight camera that's capable of shooting 4K video. It will be available in silver, space gray and rose gold.

However, the most interesting new feature here is what Apple calls '3D Touch'. This is essentially a more elaborate version of Force Touch, which debuted on the Apple Watch. 3D Touch will let the phone sense different levels of pressure and respond accordingly.

You can use it on the home screen to get shortcuts to your most-used apps, for example, while the new "peek" gesture lets you use 3D touch to preview a link without opening Safari, and a more forceful "pop" push will let you fully display the content on screen. Yes, Apple might have just made the new right click for iPhone.

All of which required a more sophisticated form of haptic feedback, which allows the touchscreen to make shorter vibrational "taps", as Jony Ive described in his usual soothing tones.

Swingers

Helping all this along is the new A9 processor, which Apple says is 70% faster at CPU jobs than the iPhone 6's A8 processor, and 90% faster in graphics tasks. We've already mentioned the rear camera, but there'll also be a 5MP front-facing snapper for FaceTime HD.

Oh, and the 6S also includes a new Touch ID sensor that Apple claims is twice as fast as the last one, which we're pretty pleased about.

The iPhone 6S will be available on September 25, but how much will it cost? Exactly the same as the iPhone 6, and with all the same storage options: The 16GB iPhone 6S costs $649 in the US, £539 in the UK and AU$999 in Australia. That's the same price as last year's iPhone 6.

To get it in a more accommodating 64GB (especially if you plan on shooting 4K video) you're looking at $749 (£619, AU$1,149), while the 128GB model is $849, £699 and $1,299.